I’ve been working really hard on the renovations for Steezy Studios™ to build a more functional and holistic brand ethos. This may not sound like much of an undertaking but considering that I’ve been the sole proprietor of all of the information and content since 2009, it’s proven to be quite an excavation. I’ve had to go through every social platform and sift through every piece of content, including this website, and delete years of posts that don’t serve or echo the new mission. In other words, -- I had to painstakingly delete all of the content that now makes me cringe.
I would be lying if I said a bit of shame didn’t re-surface as I was looking at posts from the earlier years. I felt like I was standing there, face-to-face with the broken version of me. The past persona that was so silly, so ill-equipped, so misinformed, and so confused about what true creativity is, the message he wants wants his creativity to communicate, and what he wants his creativity to leave behind. Because I haven’t seen these posts or visited these social platforms in ages, I was on the cusp of internally beating myself up for being so delusional and ill-intentioned, but then it hit me, why should I be angry at myself for being who I was when I didn't have any tools to be better? I was just doing what I could at the time to survive; not just professionally, mainly personally. If anything I should be so proud to have this scrapbook that showcases just how much I’ve grown. It’s proof that we all have the ability to rebuild and transform the raw materials of our past into anything we want.
The human experience is a journey of growth, challenge, and renewal. Throughout life, we face setbacks, losses, and moments of uncertainty, but one of our greatest strengths is the ability to rebuild. No matter how difficult things may seem, we possess the resilience to learn from hardships, adapt, and start again. Each setback offers an opportunity to reflect, grow stronger, and redefine our path. Just as nature regenerates after a storm, we too have an incredible capacity to heal, reinvent ourselves, and create new possibilities from the rubble of our past.
My failures have been some of my greatest teachers. And let me tell you, I've failed so many times and in so many ways. I’ve failed in business, I’ve failed in relationships, I’ve failed in community, and I’ve failed in faith. But each time I’ve fallen, I've also found a way to pull myself back up, dust myself off and continue striving forward. The differentiator of the previous experience to the current, is now I have new extracted information to implement into my actions, which will create a different output from my last. This is how we start building something new out of something old.
Imagine if we failed or fell and just stayed down. Imagine if we never pulled ourselves back up to our feet. I mean really think about that for a moment. What would your life look like? How would your life feel? Just the thought of this leaves me with an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I can’t imagine who I would be if I let my failures render me handicapped, or if I used failures as labels for my identity. I can’t imagine how I would feel if I let all of my mess-up’s, all of my wrongs, and all of my shame be the measurements of my self-worth. Actually, I do. I would be and feel exactly as the person I once was.
So how do we extract all that we can from the things that we feel don't serve us in the moment? For me, I built a habit of trying my best to look for the good, even if it’s in the bad. I try to harvest data, seek seeds of information, and farm the positivity out any rotten soil. I try to extract lessons from losses and look at every aspect of my experiences as a game. Not a game that I’m trying to win, because really there is no winning. We all die in the end. But I use this experience of life as a game that has endless levels. Each level builds a bigger, bolder, stronger, more creative, more generous, and more loving character.
-Danny
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Your friend,
-Danny